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End of the World

On the way home, I made a last sweep through our local Borders. I went through the bookshelves and magazine racks and wondered what exactly will be the extent of our access to print media when none of this is around any more. Is the publishing industry (no matter how vibrant or moribund) about to run out of outlets?

"Meanwhile, Spanish physician Michael Servetus published a treatise in 1553 describing how circulation of blood to the lungs and back (often called the lesser circulation) might occur. Unfortunately, because he also included religious views, all copies of his writings that could be found were destroyed, and he was burned at the stake. Eventually, in 1694, a copy of his book was found; his circulation theory matched later findings." [6th ed., v. 1, p.369]

Reading my copy of Connect Magazine, which the IT People at NYU are kind enough to still send me, I notice that they're discontinuing Dailup Service as of January 20, 2009.

That's a shame though probably long overdue. NYU Dailup service was my first gateway to the Internet way back in 1994. I had had a modem on my laptop since the late Eighties but the only time I actually used it was to dial into a special government number to download some unexceptional data. Dailing into specialized phone numbers was about all you could do with a modem back then -- that and then a bit later on, connecting to proprietary networks like AOL or CompuServe.

It's when I got to NYU in '94 and was able to connect to their Dailup service that this strange unfamiliar network called the 'Web' became accessible. This was the era of GIF images and Netscape 1.0. In fact, just before I got there, the Library at NYU had completed an initial effort to make content available online -- in Gopher.

Oh well. I used Dailup till sites like Napster started getting big, at which point I switched over to DSL from Verizon. Ah, the days of 28kbs and 56kbs connectivity!

Scientists think galactic mergers are one of the primary ways galaxies form. Like heated wax in a lava lamp, two small galaxies can come together to form one larger one, or a blob of gas and stars might pinch off during a particularly messy galactic smash-up and, over cosmic time, the result evolves into a diminutive dwarf galaxy.